1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular lamp and more particularly to a vehicular lamp that uses a light-emitting diode (called an “LED”) as its light source and that facilitates assembly and exchange of the light source section of the lamp.
2. Description of the Related Art
As light sources for vehicular lamps such as automobile lamps, tungsten incandescent light bulbs, halogen light bulbs, discharge bulbs or the like are generally used. However, factors including the development of LEDs with high brightness and lowered costs have helped steadily expand the use of LEDs as light sources for vehicular lamps.
Vehicular lamps must radiate light over a relatively broad area, and headlamps in particular require high output power. As a result, LEDs are used in a single lamp, and normally one or more LED substrates mounted with a plurality of LEDs are installed in a lamp chamber.
However, vehicular lamps that use conventional LEDs of the above-described structure as their light sources have different sizes and shapes depending on the different vehicle models in which the lamps are used. For this reason, there is no uniformity in the number of LEDs required or in layout patterns, and in addition LED substrates have difference sizes and shapes, and the number of LEDs mounted therein also varies. As a result, manufacturers are unable to make selections but to design and use lamps specifically designed to a particular vehicle model, which makes cost increases unavoidable.
There are other problems with the cost and burden of maintenance if even one LED is damaged. This is because the LED substrate with LEDs mounted must be removed so that the damaged LED is replaced or because the entire LED substrate mounted with LEDs must be exchanged, etc.